Olympus E-P1, Gail's Contest Prize

Photo taken with Lumix LX5

Gail was thrilled that she won First Place in the recent Decisive Challenge photo contest, and I'm very proud of her. She has now taken 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in the 3 of the last 4 Decisive Challenges. If you haven't seen it already, you can see her picture and the announcement on the Decisive Challenge web page: www.decisivechallenge.com.

I find it amazing that of the four Decisive Challenges to-date, we (I consider Gail part of our little group) placed in all four of them:

DC #1: Gail, 3rd place
DC #2: Gail, 2nd place, Lea 3rd place
DC #3: Warren, 3rd place
DC #4: Gail, 1st place

For her prize, I suggested that Gail choose the used Olympus E-P1 that RFF forum member, Kirk Thompson, generously donated because both of us use Micro 4/3 cameras. The E-P1 came with a Olympus 17mm f2.8 lens, and its matching optical viewfinder.

The E-P1 is the first Micro 4/3 camera body by Olympus. Its styling is retro, borrowing styling from the Olympus Pen series of film cameras. I once owned a Pen F half frame slr, and this E-P1 really reminds me of that old camera. I think that the way this camera is configured currently, with the 17mm pancake lens, and the optical viewfinder, is simply gorgeous. The metal clad body adds to the retro look and feel. The camera has a nice weight to it.

When I was reviewing the Micro 4/3 system a few years ago, I chose the Panasonic Lumix G1 and it was a matter of choosing function over styling. The E-P1 is unquestionably beautiful to behold, but the G1 has more of the functional features that I was looking for in a system camera (better grip/ergonomics, built-in EVF, etc.). Now that I finally have a chance to experience the E-P1 after all these years, I can give you some impressions of the camera, and I can tell you whether or not my previous opinions of it are substantiated by the actual experience with it.

I had a chance to take the E-P1 out to Golden Gate Park one day. This camera has been around for 4 years and it has been thoroughly reviewed over the years. I'll just add a few notes of my own:

1) It's a two handed camera. I tried to shoot the camera one-handed, but because the body is metal clad, and has substantial weight to it and also because there is no well-formed grip to it, shooting one-handed was not comfortable or practical for me.
2) The rear controls are too easy to accidentally bump, which causes unintentional changing of some critical settings. A previous owner had set the control wheel buttons on the back to change focus points, and I was constantly annoyed that my AF point was not in the center, where I wanted it.
3) Slow AF: I missed several shots because of slow AF or misdirected AF point, again very annoying when you're used to snappy focus performance.
4) Image quality is excellent, considering it's 1st generation Micro 4/3 technology.
5) I always wanted to try the Olympus 17mm pancake lens. I find that 17mm (35mm equiv) FOV very natural for me, because I've shot with many lenses of the focal length over the years. Based on this one session, I would have to say that this lens performs adequately for my uses so far.

The camera handles the way I would have expected it to handle, based on my observations of the Pen series from Olympus over the years. It is beautifully designed, and very well put together, but in my opinion, the ergonomics were compromised for the sake of aesthetics, in my opinion. In terms of IQ, it is fully capable of producing excellent images, circa 2009 quality. I have not had a chance to test the reputedly excellent OOC .jpeg quality because I only shoot RAW, maybe I will test this part of it someday.

It may seem like I don't like the camera, but in fact, it was fun to use. I will post a series of pictures from this initial session. I will need to reset the buttons on the camera to factory default because I don't like the current configuration. And I'll be taking it out again in this exact configuration soon.

--Warren